To the lyrics of African American spirituals and freedom songs like “Guide My Feet” and “Ain’t Gonna Let Nobody Turn Me ’Round,” a group made up of DREAMers, their families, clergy and other people of faith in Washington, D.C., earlier today launched the nationwide Campaign for Citizenship to call on Congress to create a road map to citizenship for the country’s 11 million aspiring Americans.

With poverty rates spinning perilously out of control in the United States, it’s time to send an unmistakable message to Congress and the White House as they prepare to resume the ongoing obsession with the deficit: End the silence on poverty, don’t make it worse by cuts to Social Security or Medicare and address a principal cause of poverty with a permanent fix to our dysfunctional health care system.

A mine superintendent at the former Massey Energy’s Upper Big Branch (W.Va.) mine, where 29 coal miners were killed in 2010, will serve 21 months in prison for his role in disabling a methane monitor that automatically shuts down a coal cutting machine when dangerous levels of the explosive gas are detected. As part of a plea deal with federal prosecutors, Gary May also will pay a $20,000 fine.

As if we didn't already have enough on our plates (having to fend off attacks from the "Fix the Debt" CEOs), now there's another group of CEOs, the Business Roundtable, telling us we need to "modernize," a.k.a. cut, Social Security and Medicare benefits by raising the eligibility ages and reducing cost-of-living adjustments (COLAs). How helpful.

It’s time to get the U.S. Senate back on track and end the gridlock of the “silent filibuster” and actually force filibustering senators to take the floor and talk if they want to block legislation. You can help.

While activists today deliver tens of thousands of letters to their senators on Capitol Hill urging them to stop the misuse and abuse of the Senate filibuster, you can, too, by calling 1-866-937-5062 and telling Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D) to publicly support strong rules reform by co-sponsoring Senate Resolution 4.

As more and more employers duck paying workers decent wages, health care and training costs by hiring contingent/temporary workers, the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) must step up its protection efforts for those workers, a new report urges. Martha McLuskey, one of the authors of the Center for Progressive Reform (CPR) report, At the Company’s Mercy: Protecting Contingent Workers from Unsafe Working Conditions, says:

Increasingly, employers are treating them as expendable, accepting high injury rates because the company is largely insulated from the economic consequences.

The historic bond between the labor and civil rights movements will be celebrated this weekend as the AFL-CIO honors Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.'s vision that collective action—whether at the voting booth or at the workplace—mobilizes participants to continue their work to make King’s dream a reality.